Your brain signals can drive how the movie ends

Did you wish for Mel Gibson's William Wallace to escape the executioner's axe in Braveheart? Or for Jack, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, and Kate Winslet's Rose to live happily ever after in Titanic?

(Image: Myndplay)

Technology to be launched tomorrow will allow film viewers to control key plot developments using the power of emotion. The Myndplay system uses a headset to pick up the patterns of brain waves associated with different states of mind, and based on the readings takes film stories in different directions to various possible endings.

In the films the viewer takes the role of the protagonist. They can
achieve positive outcomes for their character if they achieve either
high levels of mental focus or relaxation at key plot junctures, as
measured by a headset sensor measuring patterns of electrical activity
in the brain.

"It brings a level of interactivity to video that has never been
achieved before," said Mohammed Azam, managing director of
Myndplay, based in London. "The viewer chooses who lives or dies, whether the good guy or
the bad guy wins or whether the hero makes that all-important save."

The experience is a cross between watching a film and playing a video
game. It resembles a high-tech version of the Choose Your Own Adventure children's books.
The interactive films are sold online for between 99p and £3. Other
applications include an archery game and a meditation tool, and other
sports-based games, such as bowling and golf, are in the pipeline.

Two interactive short films are already available to watch on computers
for those with the £79 headsets and free Myndplay video player software. Paranormal Mynd is a horror film in which the viewer takes the role of
an exorcist hired to banish a demon from a possessed women, while
in gangster film Bullet Dodger the protagonist must stay cool to avoid a
sticky end in a series of confrontations in London's underworld.

Myndplay will be launched at the Gadget Show in Birmingham, UK, tomorrow,
along with three new short interactive films about an assassin, a bank
robbery that goes wrong and another based on characters from Gaelic
mythology with supernatural powers.

The interactions between the billions of neurons in the human brain
generate tiny electrical signals. Different states of mind or types of
thought create specific electrical patterns that can be picked up with
electroencephalogram (EEG) sensors.

The EEG headset used in the interactive video system was developed and
launched by Californian company NeuroSky last month, mainly for video
gaming and educational applications.

1) Watching a film with electrical equipment and wires attached to the head would not be fun.

2) The viewer would end up with a known ending causing some dismay and reduced satisfaction than if the ending was unkown.

3) What happens when watching a film and the viewr is cycling through many plot twists, turns and endings in his head?

Friedrich
on April 14, 2011 12:16 AM

Seems to ruin the point of a good story. Some movies would just be plain uninteresting and unmeaningful if things don't happen as the writers intended. Imagine if Obi Wan Kenobi beat Darth Vader in their duel, it would completely remove any form of message that the movie tried to send. Instead of something along the lines never giving up hope and having faith in your friends the message would be "Don't worry, some awesome old guy will solve all your problems."